Mernet Larsen
Value#74
Egon Investment Scores
Liquidity
3/10
How easily works can be bought and sold at auction
Institutional
9/10
Museum collections, biennials, and institutional recognition
Momentum
7/10
Recent price trends, gallery moves, and market buzz
Discovery
4/10
Undervaluation opportunity relative to peer artists
Risk
3/10
Investment risk factors — higher means more volatile
Market Position
- Pricing
- Pricing Context
- Pricing by Type
- Large acrylic paintings on canvas (50-70 inches): $20,000-$30,000 estimated retail. Works on paper/studies: $4,500-$10,000 estimated. Historical works (pre-2000): Limited data, likely under $15,000.
- Temporal Analysis
- Pre-2015 (regional Florida market): Minimal auction presence, primarily gallery sales. 2015-2025 (James Cohan representation): Significant gallery visibility, institutional acquisitions, fair participation (Art Basel, Frieze, Armory Show), limited public price disclosure indicating gallery price management.
- Market Transition Notes
- Artist experienced major market transition after age 75. Work previously undervalued in regional market now positioned in prestigious international gallery context. Gallery representation strategy appears to focus on museum sales and top-tier collectors rather than auction market.
- Price Not Disclosed Significance
- Recent auction results showing 'auction closed' without disclosed prices suggests: 1) Works may not have met reserve, 2) Gallery buybacks to support market, 3) Private treaty sales, 4) Limited collector demand at current asking prices in secondary market
- Auction History
- Auction Houses
- Regional auction houses (primary market)Phillips (inviting consignments)Artnet tracked results
- Market Segment
- Mid-career established painter with emerging blue-chip indicators
- Market Liquidity
- Limited - primarily gallery-driven primary market. Secondary market underdeveloped. Most works held in institutional and private collections.
- Price Trajectory
- Ascending steadily since 2015 gallery representation
- Auction Frequency
- 5-15 lots annually (low volume)
- Collector Profile
- Institutional collectors, sophisticated private collectors interested in feminist art history, geometric abstraction, and narrative painting
- Sell Through Rate
- Data not disclosed
- Geographic Markets
- Primary: New York, Los Angeles, Miami (Art Basel presence). Secondary: Florida regional market
- Total Lots Tracked
- 15+ auction results documented
- Price Ranges Observed
- Note
- Pricing suggests gallery-controlled primary market with limited secondary liquidity
- Average Retail Price 1stdibs
- $25,000
- Primary Market Retail 1stdibs
- $4,500 - $30,000
- Recent Sales 2024 2025
Title Year Date Result Untitled 1970-1974 August 1, 2024 Price not disclosed - auction closed Untitled 2000 June 26, 2024 Price not disclosed - auction closed Handshake 2001 February 27, 2024 Price not disclosed - auction closed Coffee 2007 December 14, 2023 Price not disclosed - auction closed Escalator 2009 October 14, 2023 Price not disclosed - auction closed - Historical Sales Documented
Title Year Date Result Untitled (Chinese Landscape) 1992 May 13, 2021 Price not disclosed Untitled 2007 September 19, 2017 Price not disclosed
- Market Position
- Strong upward trajectory 2015-2025. Gained significant institutional validation and critical attention. Gallery representation at prestigious James Cohan signals market confidence. Participation in major art fairs (Art Basel, Frieze Masters) indicates growing international market.
Institutional Presence
Whitney Museum of American Art
New York, NYLos Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
Los Angeles, CAMuseum of Fine Arts
Boston, MAWalker Art Center
Minneapolis, MNCarnegie Museum of Art
Pittsburgh, PAIsrael Museum
Jerusalem, IsraelArt Gallery of New South Wales
Sydney, AustraliaX Museum
Beijing, ChinaAkron Art Museum
Akron, OHNational Gallery of Art
Washington, DCTampa Museum of Art
Tampa, FLMuseum of Fine Arts
St. Petersburg, FLRingling Museum of Art
Sarasota, FLRollins Museum of Art (Alfond Collection)
Winter Park, FLRose Art Museum
Brandeis UniversityFondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo
Turin, ItalyHall Art Foundation
- Exhibitions
- Major Solo Shows
Title Year Venue Significance Thinking About Cézanne 2024 James Cohan Gallery, New York Fourth solo with gallery, focused engagement with Cézanne The Ordinary, Reoriented 2019 Akron Art Museum Major museum survey Getting Measured: 1957-2017 2017-2018 Tampa Museum of Art 60-year comprehensive retrospective Situation Rooms 2018 James Cohan Gallery, New York Second solo with gallery Things People Do 2016 James Cohan Gallery, New York First solo with gallery, first major NYC commercial gallery debut Chainsawer, Bicyclist, and Reading in Bed 2015 Various Small Fires, Los Angeles West coast debut Three Chapters 2012 Johannes Vogt Gallery, New York Manhattan gallery debut Retrospective 1992 DeLand Museum of Art, Florida Early career retrospective - Notable Group Shows
Title Year Venue Kinetic Traces 2025 National Academy of Design, New York The Original Influencers: Mernet Larsen, Steve Lotz, and Bruce Marsh 2025 Mennello Museum of American Art, Orlando, FL How Long is Now 2021-2022 Israel Museum, Jerusalem Stretching the Body 2021 Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy Contemporary Figurative Painting (with Neo Rauch, Georg Baselitz, Dana Schutz, Ben Quilty) 2017-2018 Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Tightrope Walk: Painting Images After Abstraction 2015 White Cube, London Transitory Patterns 2004 National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC 41st Annual Purchase Exhibition 1989 American Academy of Arts and Letters, NYC Made In Florida 1989-92 — - Art Fair Participation
- Art Basel Miami Beach (2025 - James Cohan Booth G20)Frieze Masters London (2024 - Booth E9)The Armory Show New York (2024 - Booth 224, 2017, 2019)Frieze Los Angeles (2024 - Booth C5, 2023)Art Basel Basel (2022 - Booth A12)ADAA: The Art Show (2021 - Booth A7)Artissima Turin (2013)
- Solo Exhibitions Count
- 30+ solo exhibitions
- Group Exhibitions Count
- 70+ group exhibitions
- Museum Collections
- Curatorial Interest
- High and increasing. Major museum retrospectives, international group exhibitions, prestigious fair booth presentations. Curators recognize her as prescient voice on perspective and digital perception before digital became dominant.
- Awards and Recognition
- American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Award (1989)Included in Phaidon's 'Vitamin P: New Perspectives in Painting' (2016)MacDowell FellowProfessor Emeritus, University of South Florida
Career & Biography
- Career
- Studio Locations
- Tampa, Florida (primary - converted fire station purchased in 1960s)Jackson Heights, New York
- Career Milestones
Year Event 1965 First teaching position at University of Oklahoma 1967 Joined University of South Florida as first woman art faculty member in Florida 1967-2003 Taught painting and drawing at University of South Florida, retiring as Professor Emeritus 1999 Pivotal career shift from abstract to narrative figurative painting with 'Getting Measured' 2011 First commercial gallery showing at age 71 2012 Manhattan gallery debut at Johannes Vogt Gallery with 'Three Chapters' 2015 Joined James Cohan Gallery representation 2017 Major retrospective 'Getting Measured, 1957-2017' at Tampa Museum of Art 2021 Major retrospective monograph published with essay by Hans Ulrich Obrist - Career Trajectory
- Late-bloomer success story. Worked in relative regional obscurity for four decades while teaching in Florida. Gained national recognition in her 70s during the 2010s when her work resonated with digital-age concerns about perspective and perception. Despite never using computers, her geometric figures were mistaken for digital art, bringing her work into contemporary discourse.
- Identity
- Artist Name
- Mernet Larsen
- Current Age
- 85
- Getty Ulan Id
- 500488136
- Living Status
- living
- Personal Life
- Married to artist Roger Clay Palmer
- Birth Location
- Houghton, Michigan
- Artistic Context
- Employs reverse perspective and spatial manipulation to construct narrative paintings that 'reach toward, not from, life.' Describes process as making 'a believable tension between the formal structure and the situation depicted' to make 'banal situations seem unfamiliar and disorienting.'
Artistic Profile
- Influences
- Artists
- El Lissitzky (primary - Constructivism, Proun paintings)Paul Cézanne (lifelong interest, subject of 2024 exhibition)Kazimir MalevichSophie Tauber-ArpGiorgio de Chirico (architectural rendering, perspective)Francis BaconAl Held (reverse perspective)M.C. Escher (spatial conundrums)
- Art Historical Sources
- 12th-century Japanese emaki narrative scrolls15th-century Italian Renaissance painting (Sienese)Byzantine icon painting (reverse perspective)Roman paintingEarly Chinese landscapesIndian miniatures and palace paintings (Udaipur)Japanese Bunraku puppet theater
- Theoretical Influences
- Roland BarthesStructuralismModernist formalism (engaging its limits)
- Themes and Subjects
- Subjects
- Everyday mundane scenarios (faculty meetings, dining, card games, reading in bed)Spatial relationships and perceptionHuman interaction and social dynamicsPower relationships and hierarchyPsychological essence of ordinary moments
- Formal Concerns
- Reverse perspective (elements enlarge as they recede)Multiple incompatible viewpoints in single compositionDeconstruction of unified Renaissance perspectiveGeometric abstraction as foundation for figurationTension between formal structure and depicted situation
- Psychological Dimensions
- Disorientation, anxiety, precariousness, isolation, conformity, wry humor, absurdity, 'uniquely pressurized sensation'
- Movements and Periods
- Influenced Artists
- Recognized as influence by younger painters, particularly those working with geometric figuration and spatial distortion. Painter Tala Lok (Columbia University faculty) cites Larsen as inspiration for keeping her 'excited to paint.'
- Critical Positioning
- Described as creating 'some of the most beguiling and psychologically complex narrative paintings of the 21st century' (curator Veronica Roberts). Critics place her work in dialogue with de Chirico, Cézanne, Russian Constructivism, while noting her deeply personal and independent development. Feminist art history angle increasingly emphasized - woman who developed unique vision outside mainstream art world, gained recognition in her 70s-80s.
- Techniques and Mediums
- Process
- Meticulously plots compositions on Bristol paper with measurements and notations before enlarging to canvas. Often paints elements separately on tracing paper and collages them. Describes process as 'rorschaching' - free-associating from abstract forms to build geometric structures into representational space
- Materials
- Acrylic and mixed media on canvas, cut-and-painted tracing paper, manipulated textures
- Innovations
- Unique synthesis of geometric abstraction and narrative painting. Uses abstract art history (particularly El Lissitzky Constructivism) as compositional springboard for representational work. Seamlessly integrates diverse historical perspective systems (Japanese emaki scrolls, early Renaissance, Byzantine icon painting, Indian miniatures, Russian Constructivism) into contemporary narrative paintings.
- Signature Techniques
- Reverse perspectiveIsometric projectionFish-eye distortionRadical scale shifts within compositionsCollaged tracing paper elementsCool, creamy color palettesHard-edged geometric figures
Critical Reception
- Critical Reception
- Major Reviews
Date Author Publication April 2021 Staff Artforum December 2020/January 2021 Jillian Steinhauer The New York Times October 2012 Roberta Smith The New York Times 2018 — The New Yorker January 2021 Mario Naves New Criterion October 2012, May 2018, February 2021 John Yau (multiple reviews) Hyperallergic March 27, 2015 Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer Artforum April 1, 2015 Sharon Mizota Los Angeles Times 2016 Noah Dillon Frieze September 2015 Andrew Bernardini Mousse Magazine May 2017 Mernet Larsen Modern Painters March 11, 2016 David Brody Artcritical - Critical Consensus
- Critics consistently praise Larsen's unique perspective manipulation, geometric figuration, wry humor, and prescient engagement with how we perceive space in digital age. Described as 'original,' 'beguiling,' 'psychologically complex.' Recognition that she developed this language independently over decades before gaining wider attention. Feminist art history angle noted - first woman art faculty in Florida, commercial gallery debut at age 71.
- Catalogue Raisonnes
- No comprehensive catalogue raisonné published
- Academic Scholarship
- Growing scholarly attention. Curator Veronica Roberts (Blanton Museum) has written extensively. Inclusion in Phaidon's Vitamin P indicates art historical recognition. Featured in Contemporary Art Review LA interview (2023). MacDowell Fellowship indicates peer recognition.
- Publications and Media
- Major Publications
Title Year Significance Publisher Type Mernet Larsen 2021 Comprehensive career survey with leading curators/critics Major publisher Monograph Mernet Larsen 2013 — Damiani Press Monograph Vitamin P: New Perspectives in Painting 2016 Major international survey of contemporary painting Phaidon Press Book inclusion - Documentary Coverage
- Artist talks available through James Cohan Gallery. Studio visit videos. Conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist published in 2021 monograph.
Gallery & Representation
- Representation
- Gallery Strategy
- James Cohan positioning Larsen as important historical figure whose work anticipates digital-age concerns. Focus on museum placement, top-tier collectors, critical legitimacy rather than auction market volume. Regular participation in blue-chip fairs (Art Basel, Frieze Masters).
- Previous Representation
Years Location Significance Gallery 2012-2015 New York First Manhattan commercial gallery Johannes Vogt Gallery 2015 Los Angeles West coast exposure Various Small Fires 2010 St. Petersburg, FL Regional Florida representation Mindy Solomon Gallery 1970s-2000s — Built regional reputation over decades Multiple Florida regional galleries - Current Primary Representation
- Since
- 2015
- Gallery
- James Cohan Gallery
- Locations
- New York (48 Walker St, 52 Walker St, 291 Grand St)
- Gallery Tier
- Tier 1 International
- Relationship Notes
- Strong gallery commitment - 4 solo exhibitions, regular fair participation, published major monograph, consistent promotion
- Geographic Reach
Mernet Larsen's fundamentals are strong. But is the timing right for your collection? Egon analyzes fit against your aesthetic thesis, risk tolerance, and portfolio gaps.
Get Personalized AnalysisActive Market Signals
Signal Timeline & Strength Analysis
Gallery moves, auction records, institutional acquisitions, price milestones — tracked over 90 days
Collector Demographics & Buyer Analysis
Geographic distribution, institutional vs. private buyers, collector profiles, and secondary market activity
Personalized Acquisition Strategy
Optimal entry points, comparable pricing analysis, timing recommendations, and portfolio fit assessment
Go Deeper with Personalized Intelligence
You now have Egon's market assessment of Mernet Larsen. The next question is personal: does this artist belong in your collection? Egon analyzes collection fit based on your aesthetic thesis, existing holdings, budget, and investment goals — delivering acquisition strategies no public index can provide.